Loot boxes are obviously gambling

Hey uh, I don’t do a lot of mobile gaming, but what’s a loot box and why should I care if it’s gambling or not?

Couple things:

1) This is very prevalent in high budget desktop/console games as well, not just mobile games.

2) These games typically do little to nothing to abide by laws that prohibit gambling by minors. There are definitely concerns of whether this is ethical or legal.

The article is talking about competitive multiplayer games, rather than mobile games. DOTA 2 and CS:GO are the examples used. Theres a few elements that, together, make it extremely problematic in my opinion. Using CS:GO as the example:

1. Items are dropped randomly, or you can buy randomised "crates". By design, plain looking drops are common, while visually impressive drops are rare.

2. When you buy crates and unlock them, there is a "wheel of fortune" style visual system that indicates what item you will receive. There are audio and visual cues indicating how rare or common the item is.

4. There is an in-game trading system that allows users to buy and sell items at an agreed price. Rare items are naturally more expensive on this market. The majority of CS:GO's revenue comes from cuts of these trades.

5. Kids play CS:GO. It is very common to run into young teenagers (13-15) in matchmaking servers.

6. Kids who are exposed to gambling are much more likely to become addicted than adults, are much less likely to have the means to repay debt, and therefore are not held responsible for gambling losses in the eyes of the law. Gambling under the age of 16 is illegal in most countries, and in many cases under 18.

A loot box is specifically an item that can be purchased in-game that offers a random reward, typically from a loot table and with set odds known only to the game maker. They come in many forms; one of the most obvious is found in Overwatch right now, typically awarded to the player after they level up in game. Overwatch's loot box animation is very pretty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdB17umeKB0

If this sounds kind of familiar, it's because a similar concept exists in many Arcades already, in the form of capsule machines. Japanese Gashapon are the oft-cited inspiration, but countless variations on this idea exist. Here in South Texas, they're a common sight in grocery stores and restaurants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gashapon

On their own, random rewards in a video game sound tame, but where this gets questionably ethical are games which (a) accept real money for in-game purchases, and (b) offer loot-boxes as an in-game purchase. This enables game players to pay real money to receive a random reward, and it's not hard to draw comparisons to real life slot machines. Unlike real-life gambling though, loot boxes have been popping up in games that are often targeted towards minors, making the issue even more complicated. I won't weigh in on the issue here, I just wanted to try to clarify what they are.

You seem to have accepted that loot boxes are a form of gambling even though that is not really the agreed upon legal definition of gambling.